Unbridled Equestrian

24/05/2026

Just another reason to be wildly opposed to a tight drop nose band 😑

The horse’s nostril is supported by cartilage (the alar cartilage) — BUT not all the way around. The lateral side, the outer wall, is just a double fold of skin with a thin muscle in between. That muscle opens the nostril by pulling the wall outward — those big, flared nostrils you see when a horse is working hard or alarmed.
Unlike a dog or us, the horse can breathe only through the nose, not through the mouth.
Which means pressure on that soft outer wall from the outside is enough to close his airway.
Nothing more needs to be said.

23/05/2026

🙌

18/05/2026

15/05/2026

🙌

13/05/2026

We do it for fun, remember? 🤪

12/05/2026

🙌

As riding instructors we spend a lot of time managing the gap between what new students expect riding to be and what it actually is. Most of that gap could be narrowed significantly with one honest conversation before the first lesson ever happens. So here is everything I wish every new student and every new riding family walked in already knowing...

1. Riding is harder than it looks
This is the one that surprises people most. Watching a good rider looks effortless but it is not effortless. It is years of muscle memory, feel, balance, and body awareness built through consistent work over a long time. Your first lessons will feel awkward and uncoordinated and that is completely normal. Every rider you have ever admired felt exactly the way you feel right now when they were starting out.

2. The horse is not a bicycle
It is a living animal with its own personality, its own opinions, and its own good days and bad days. It does not always do what you ask the first time and that is not always your fault but it is always your responsibility to figure out the communication. Learning to work with a horse rather than on top of one is one of the most valuable things riding teaches and it starts from the very first lesson.

3. Progress is not linear
Some weeks you will feel like you have jumped forward three levels. Other weeks you will feel like you have forgotten everything you learned last month. Both are completely normal parts of learning to ride. The students who improve consistently are not the ones who never have bad lessons but they are the ones who show up anyway and keep working through the frustrating ones.

4. One lesson a week is a start but not a program
A single lesson per week gives you exposure to riding. Two lessons per week builds skill significantly faster. The riders who progress quickest are the ones who ride consistently and frequently enough that their muscles and nervous system have time to develop real memory around what correct feels like. If budget allows for more than one lesson per week it is worth it.

5. Your position will feel wrong before it feels right
Correct position in the saddle feels deeply unnatural to most people at first. Heels down feels like you are pushing your foot through the floor. Sitting tall feels like you are leaning back. An independent hand feels like you are doing nothing. Trust the process and trust your instructor. The things that feel strange now become automatic eventually but only if you commit to doing them correctly rather than defaulting back to what feels comfortable.

6. The time around the lesson matters as much as the lesson itself
Grooming your horse before you ride. Learning to tack up correctly. Understanding how to read your horse's body language in the cross ties. This is not the boring part before the real lesson begins. This is horsemanship and it makes you a better rider than an hour in the saddle alone ever will.

7. Bad rides happen to every rider at every level
Including the ones you look up to most. A bad lesson does not mean you are not cut out for this, it just means you are learning something hard and doing it on the back of a living animal that is also having a day. Come back next week and it will be different.
Your instructor is on your side.

8. Every correction we give is in service of your progress and your safety
We are not pointing out what is wrong to make you feel bad but we are pointing out what needs to change so you can get where you want to go faster and more safely. The students who improve fastest are the ones who hear a correction as information rather than criticism and apply it without taking it personally.

9. Riding changes you in ways you will not expect
The patience it builds, the confidence that comes from communicating with an animal ten times your size and being understood. The resilience that develops from falling short of a goal and coming back for it anyway. The community you find at the barn. None of that shows up in the first lesson or even the tenth but it will show up at one point. For most riders it becomes one of the most significant things in their life and not just what they do on Tuesday afternoons but part of who they are.

If you are a riding instructor share this with every new family who walks through your gate. If you are a new student or a parent of one - welcome. You picked something genuinely worth doing!

What do you wish someone had told you before your very first riding lesson?

11/05/2026

We talk about moving to the gaits during lessons - she explains it really well, and you can watch and rewatch. See how she moves, see how the horse responds 🙂

09/05/2026

So lucky to get under 10mm of rain this week!
The horses took great pleasure in rolling in the black mud 🤣🤦‍♀️

01/05/2026

Cycle breaking 💪

OK, let's talk about why I don't hit horses.

First of all, I do hit horses, or I have hit horses. I don't think anyone has learned to ride without being handed a crop at some point.

Although I am working hard on emotional regulation skills, everyone gets frustrated and overwhelmed sometimes.
That's not what I'm talking about.

I’m talking about the fact that it is normal and accepted in the horse world to cause horses pain to influence their behavior.

It is most common and most unfair, I think, with a horse who is overwhelmed. A horse who is over threshold, is essentially in a state of panic.

Science tells us that no learning can happen when any being is over the threshold into fight or flight.
Once they're that upset, anything you do just prolongs the upset and causes more trauma.

How do I know that?
I know that, because I'm an autistic human, and we didn't know that until I was 30.

When I was a kid, all we knew was that everything was too much and overwhelming, and I was being loud, and I was misbehaving, and I just needed to act like I had some sense.

I got told things like, that doesn't hurt you. And this is fine. There's nothing wrong with you. You’re being lazy, just being dramatic. You are just faking to get out of work.

The same words that you hear people say about their horses. They're not faking to get out of work. They don't understand, or they can't do what you're asking.

I don't hit horses, because when I was a little girl, I was hit. When I was over threshold, and I was afraid, and I was having meltdowns due to sensory problems that my family could not understand, (because their perception of the world was not the same as mine.)

I have been hit much of my life. First by my father, later by domestic partners, even by a student’s mother.

Not one time ever did hitting me help me understand. Not one time ever did hitting me make it better. All it ever did was make me even more upset, even more afraid.

When your horse is freaking out, they need help, just like a child who's freaking out needs help.
Horses do well when they can. And when they can't, it's because something is wrong.

Behavior is communication.
Fighting with a horse who's having a hard time doesn't make anything better for anybody, and it's a great way to get hurt.

I don't hit horses. I can train horses without hitting them. I can use other ways to help them understand.

So if it's not necessary to hit them, and it's not helpful to hit them. Then why do we do it?

Sometimes because we're afraid. Because they are big, and they can be scary, especially when they are upset or exuberant.

Sometimes we do it because that's what we were taught. That's sort of what happened to me. These things get handed down in families. If your dad hit you, it makes sense to hit your child when they do the same thing you were doing.

It takes a lot of effort and a lot of therapy to make a different decision.

I don't hit horses. Because horses don't lie. Just like I didn't lie. They're not trying to give you a hard time. They are having a hard time. And if they're not able to communicate to you in a way that you can understand what the root cause of that hard time is, that doesn't mean there isn't one.

If you care more about relationships, about being a safe friend for your horse, than you do about quick results and ribbons, reach out to me and Let's go together.